Yet Another 'Rogue Site' List Proposed, This Time With YouTube Right On Top

from the wouldn't-it-be-simpler-if-YOU-just-got-off-the-internet? dept

Charlie, over at the MusicTechPolicy blog, asks a rather simple question: How many DMCA notices are too many? Specifically, he asks this question of an attorney representing YouTube:

I asked him a question that I now feel very safe in asking-does a million notice and takedowns sent to one service in 12-18 months constitute "red flag" knowledge? This isn't speculation anymore-YouTube must have received at least a million DMCA notices by now. Even if the site has a repeat infringer policy, should they still get a safe harbor if they seem to attract significant numbers of repeat infringers?

Charlie's point is that if a significant amount of DMCA notices are filed against a certain site, it should have its safe harbors removed. The YouTube attorney responded:

Well, you see, it depends on how large the service is.

Charlie doesn't like this answer, but the answer is fair. Yes, a million DMCA notices is a lot, but let's take a look at YouTube's stats. 48 hours of content are uploaded every minute. If we are generous and assume that each 48 hours is broken down into 10-minute clips, it means that YouTube is receiving 288 clips per minute, or 414,720 clips per day. A week's worth of activity would be 2,903,040 clips at 10 minutes per. So, a million takedown notices in the course of a week would indicate that 34% of the videos were infringing.

But Charlie is asking about a 12-18 month period, which would involve anywhere from 150,958,080 - 226,437,120 clips. (Again, we're still assuming 10 minutes per. The actual numbers would be much, much higher.) At this point, the percentage of DMCA notices filed versus total uploads slips to 0.66% - 0.44%. Looking at these numbers, one would assume that YouTube is actually doing very well when it comes to handling infringing uploads, especially when you consider that more than 120 million videos have been claimed by Content ID and that YouTube is scanning over 100 years of video every day.

But that's not the way Charlie sees it. All he sees is millions of hours of infringement, monetized by Google:

So if the "service" does a really good job of creating lots and lots of infringement but only gets caught a small percentage of the time, then that doesn't mean that they "knew or should have known" that infringing activity was going on. Even if that small percentage was over a million copyright owners who decided to send notices.

First off, Charlie misstates the nature of the "knew or should have known" question when it comes to copyright infringement. That phrase is only directed at specific instances of works, rather than general knowledge across the site. Of course YouTube knows that some users on the site infringe, but that's meaningless. If a company lost their safe harbors just because some users infringed, generally, then there would be no safe harbors. Just because a tiny percentage of videos on YouTube get DMCA takedown notices (which YouTube is notoriously fast in then taking down), doesn't mean the entire site is a rogue site... unless you're Charlie and are looking for reasons to mislead the public about YouTube.

Separately, "creating lots and lots of infringement?" As far as I know, users create the content and YouTube polices it. Charlie is trying very hard to drop culpability for the users' actions into Google's hands, despite the fact that YouTube, as was stated above, is scanning 100 years of video every day in a rather successful effort to minimize infringement. It's also monetizing 3 billion videos per week and working with "every major US network broadcaster, movie studio and record label" to keep its Content ID reference files up to date. In other words, YouTube has one of, if not the most aggressive systems of any online service provider in not just stopping any infringement it can find (sometimes, in fact, being too aggressive), but also presenting options to copyright holders, creating new monetization streams that were impossible before to artists.

Charlie has a solution, though, to deal with the Googles and YouTubes of the world, who are raking in big money thanks to the creative "work product of others that they can't hold a candle to."

Wouldn't it be more efficient for an artist -who wishes to enjoy all the extraordinary benefits the first decade of the 21st century is bringing to them- if there were some kind of ranking system for the really bad guys? A ranking system for copyright infringers based on DMCA notices sent?

I'm assuming Charlie means by total number of notices sent, rather than by any other indicator of ongoing and willful infringement, like a ratio or percentage -- despite the fact that a total number is meaningless in terms of noting how well a company deals with the issues. Instead, it looks like he's proposing another form of "rogue site" list, only one that is pointlessly targeting one of the most heavily traveled sites on the web; a site that hosts millions of non-infringing videos and is incredibly effective at blocking infringement.

All well and good, I suppose. He's got a take-charge attitude. After all, if you want something done, you've got to do it yourself...

There's actually nothing that would stop artists from developing such a service...

Or not.

...aside from money, of course, and time taken away from diligently monitoring the Internet for other "citizens of the 21st century" who are infringing their work. You would think that the Copyright Office would want to maintain it, too, so they could see how effectively the DMCA notice and takedown system was working. Or maybe even the Congress might be interested?

Oh. I see. Someone else needs to take care of this for you, too. Not only do the copyright maximalists expect their critics to come up with business models for them, but they also need someone else to red flag anything hinting of infringement solely for their benefit. The rest of the internet, these rogue companies "free-riding" on the backs of "creatives," need to be held accountable for their actions. And there's no one better suited to slapping a damning scarlet "R" right across YouTube's billion dollar chest than "someone else."

But not just any "someone else." This needs the touch of a Congressman. That way when web surfers wander into YouTube, there will be a DHS logo informing them that the road ahead is fraught with infringement, possible child porn and steeped in the blood of dying "creatives." Or maybe no one will get any further than the logo as the site has been seized due to a complaint about 0.66% of EOY 2011 Uploads.

Breaking it all down, it goes like this. YouTube hosts infringing content (current percentage unknown). YouTube also receives many DMCA notices. Therefore, the government should step in and slap some sort of arbitrary rating system into place solely to benefit the creative industries that are too busy to do this sort of thing themselves. And this should all be implemented because one million is a Very Large Number. Is that about right?

Re:

That is easy, once they are dead :D
Opinions one believes are fact never disappear. They just go by what feels right and ignore any evidence to the contrary. You might as well be trying to convince them that they are only a computer and every one else is real. It would easier then trying to teach them about the way the internet works.

Re: Re:

You copyright maximalist paytrolls just don't get it. The wild west days are here to stay.

Paytrolls
Paytrolls
Must be sniffing glue
Charlie is a dumbass
And so are you!

How long will it take for these people to get it? Forever to never. The saying goes that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. It's like trying to convince industry execs that the sky is blue. Even when you take them outside and show them, they'll still refuse to give in. It isn't even about the money anymore for a lot off them. It is about sticking to those damn dirty pirates no matter the cost, which is why we keep seeing crazy amounts of money being wastefully funneled down the drain. How can they claim to have the moral high ground when greed and hate have so completely twisted their ability to see reason and act rationally? Speaking as a pirate that wants to pay, I am continually dumbfounded by their apparent lack of sanity.

Let's slash it down to 10 years or less and substantially weaken laws against alleged digital infringement, codify fair usages and/or expand them, and severely stiffen fines for fraudulent claims of infringement and those who repeatedly file them. Replace notice and takedown with notice and notice, mandate that ISPs and web hosting services are NOT in any way responsible or even able to determine actual infringement, and create due diligence requirements for accusers to adhere to lest they lose their shirts in any subsequent litigation.

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I say we abolish IP altogether. Period. These laws emerged with oppressive intent, they have an oppressive history, and they continue to exist for oppressive reasons. They serve no good whatsoever and are oppressive in nature. Abolish them.

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I say we abolish IP altogether. Period. These laws emerged with oppressive intent, they have an oppressive history, and they continue to exist for oppressive reasons. They serve no good whatsoever and are oppressive in nature. Abolish them.

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Tim... please! What is it? Figures don't lie but liars can figure? You really play a game here.

First off, the number of DMCA notices versus the number of clips uploaded is not a great indication of the "copyright violation rate". Rather, it indicates a system that is entirely broken, because rights holders don't have the time to check every new video to see if some or all of it is in violation.

So your 0.66 rate, or 0.43 rate is pretty much horsecrap, because it only deals with DMCA notices filed, not levels of actual copyright infringement.

Think about it this way: 1 million DMCA notices in a year is 2700+ notices a day. If each notice takes 30 minutes to "treat", you have 1350 man hours, or something like $30,000 a day spend on treating them, or almost 11 millions dollars a year. Now, I don't know about you, but a service that is spending 11 million plus a year to handle copyright violation notices might have an idea that their service is being used extensively to violate copyright?

Further, let's not forget that YouTube already has signficant filtering in place. You would have to wonder how many videos a day are removed by automated systems. That too would tilt the results, and indicate an even stronger number of copyright violations.

A million notices a year would be significant enough to say they are aware, in my mind.

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You make an excellent point, why should YouTube have to pay $11 million plus a year to handle copyright violations when legally the onus has always been on the copyright holder to pursue non-criminal infringement?

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"So your 0.66 rate, or 0.43 rate is pretty much horsecrap, because it only deals with DMCA notices filed, not levels of actual copyright infringement."

That works both ways. We have no way of knowing the amount of bogus takedowns for material that is fair use.

"might have an idea that their service is being used extensively to violate copyright?"

Yes, they know that some people are using the service to infringe. What, exactly, do you propose they do about this? Shut down? That would be counterproductive, because some other site would pop up to fill the gap - and THAT site might decide to base themselves in some country with less restrictive copyright laws. If that happened, you could say goodbye to DMCA takedown notices and any sort of screening. You could try to sue them, but good luck collecting from a company with no US connections.

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That's the point. I'm reinforcing this argument. The movie and music studios went out of their way to make everyone running the Piratebay liable for copyright infringement, from jail time to high fines.

They've committed raids, ignoring the technology that has progressed. All it did was make the Piratebay that much stronger as the largest library in the world.

Meanwhile, the more the industry focused on "rogue sites", the less consumer demands have been met.

Re:

That "1,000,000 notices" assumes that those are all legitimate cases of infringement. How many of that million are taking down fair use content or content that the filer doesn't actually have the rights to?

To me the number says there were 1,000,000 cases of censorship on YouTube alone in a year. Each one of those filings should be scrutinized to ensure that the filer has the rights to take down the content and that the content isn't covered under fair use.

Re: Re:

That would be assuming that the DMCA is not regularly abused by those that do not really have the right to file one in the first place. We know that this is regularly abused by a variety of entities. We also know that much of the Youtube DMCA system is automated and does not involve any actual person.

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The article says that YouTube scans 100 years' worth of video every day. How is YouTube supposed to know how much of that video is infringing? How is YouTube supposed to magically figure out what is or isn't fair use of a copyrighted song/TV show/movie/etc.?

That's what the safe harbors are for: to protect YouTube from being sued out of existence because they don't have a system that automagically tells them that a video is infringing and doesn't fall under the reign of fair use.

If YouTube is going to be taken out because it receives a bunch of DMCA notifications, then what's to stop this sort of thing from happening to DeviantArt or 4chan or any other site that relies on user-uploaded content?

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"hen what's to stop this sort of thing from happening to DeviantArt or 4chan or any other site that relies on user-uploaded content?"

well the obviously don't want users to create and upload their own content. If the industry controls all access to all content then they can keep charging rent. Pull down youtube and replace it with minetube, only 1$ per video per play.

Re: Re:

You said: How is YouTube supposed to magically figure out what is or isn't fair use of a copyrighted song/TV show/movie/etc.?

Me: Simple - only allow stuff on your site that you have the rights too. If you don't have the rights, don't post it.

If you end user claims to have all rights, make them execute a document with their posting that accepts legal responsiblity, and lists a DMCA notification address, which can be included with the video post. Trust me, if people actually had to identify themselves with the infringing content they post, they would stop directly.

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This would require millions of non-infringing users to make their identities readily known, stifle free expression, increase incidents of abuse against people who could be persecuted for their opinions, etc. etc. Of course, those with the intent to infringe won't be bothered to correctly identify themselves. After all, if breaking one law they disagree with is ok, it's unlikely they will take issue with breaking a related one.

Perhaps one day this will come to pass though, probably around the same time they make everyone receive a GPS chip implant that records their every moment and identifies them in order to "prevent crime".

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By millions, I refer to all the videos created by the users via webcams, personal digital video recorders, or official content creation sites like GoAnimate and Xtranormal, etc.

Assuming everything must be infringement until proven otherwise is exactly when I mean when I say such a mindset inhibits free speech. Make everyone stand up and correctly identify themselves BEFORE they are allowed to speak? That way you know who to harass and intimidate when they say something you don't like, hmm?

Nothing could make people in your corner more happy, easy access to endless targets for extortion schemes.

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^

Why would infringers put there real information? Now your going to tell me that youtube has to read through the millions of applications for every piece of content and find the fake ones and this whole retardery just starts over again. Please just go back to stopping the tide and tilting windmills

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"Me: Simple - only allow stuff on your site that you have the rights too. If you don't have the rights, don't post it."

They do only allow stuff they have rights to, and they don't post anything. The problem is the general public posting 48 hours worth of video per minute. If something is found to be infringing it is removed, but its impossible for them to know everything that is put on the site and know whether the poster has the rights to it. Other flaws in your plan have been mentioned already, and the solution certainly isnt anything simple.

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Will the industry create one big authoritative central database for easy consultation by anyone who wants to know who owns what and where?

Probably not, collection agencies would dread such a database, that could prove without a doubt that others were not playing their songs, Studios and Labels wouldn't want to open up their contracts to scrutiny to prove they own something.

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Think about this: YouTube has not intrinsic way of knowing whether a video is infringing or not. It has create tools, in conjunction with content owners, to help identify which contents does and then deal with it. No site that allowed people not affiliated with the site would be able to host any content. Each content owner would have to have their own site. This cumbersome system would not be able to survive.

Granted, this is probably what big content owners want. But I don't think that is what the people want. The bottom line is that if big content doesn't survive, we still will. There will always be interesting things to do, see and listen to.

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Copyright maximalists are always coming up with ideas that range from impractical to impossible. I think the reason is because they've grown up during a technological golden age, and so believe anything is possible given the right invention. They simply cannot comprehend why creating a system that can identify infringing content with 100% accuracy is impossible. God/Gods/Aliens/Chance didn't have perfection in mind when it/they created this universe. If true perfection were possible, we would already have perpetual motion machines, frictionless surfaces, and a utopian society where everyone was happy.

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Being aware means you are able to fully stop it, right? We are aware that the US are the larges drug consumers in the world so they are aware and they should be able to stop it, right? After all they won the war on drugs right? Bu no, if they HADN'T won the war on drugs (and my sarcasm meter skyrocketed to Pluto) then the countries that are affected by the organized crime that runs the production should charge the US US$ 1 trillion gazillion buzillion dollars in compensation for the damages the AMERICAN consumers are causing on their countries. Right?

First off, the number of DMCA notices versus the number of clips uploaded is not a great indication of the "copyright violation rate". Rather, it indicates a system that is entirely broken, because rights holders don't have the time to check every new video to see if some or all of it is in violation.

YES! The COPYRIGHT system is broken. Because it lacks decent fair use. Because the artists don't own their copyrights and even those who want to share can't. Your head is broken because a collaborative site like youtube with freakloads of visitors every second should NEVER be held accountable for anything ESPECIALLY for the fact that they ACTIVELY FILTER their content, CHINA style.

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The ISPs, the router manufacturers even the people who lay down the fiber optics know that there will be infringing activity in the system.

Just like youtube they dont know any specifics like what, when, how, but they know that infringement, in general, happens alot on the internet.

And according to you, that makes them responsible. Liable.

It would be far too costly to prevent infringement from happening at the root - the user - since every packet stream would have to be scanned and compared to all the copyrighted materials in the world. And thats not even taking encryption into consideration.

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First off, the number of DMCA notices versus the number of clips uploaded is not a great indication of the "copyright violation rate".

Charlie certainly feels it is. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been so dismissive of the attorney's "depends on the size of the service" answer.

Think about it this way: 1 million DMCA notices in a year is 2700+ notices a day. If each notice takes 30 minutes to "treat", you have 1350 man hours, or something like $30,000 a day spend on treating them, or almost 11 millions dollars a year. Now, I don't know about you, but a service that is spending 11 million plus a year to handle copyright violation notices might have an idea that their service is being used extensively to violate copyright?

No doubt it is an incredible expense for Youtube, which would explain its Content ID system and the fact that it scans 100 years of footage every day to keep infringement as low as possible.

I'm not sure what we're arguing about other than I feel that Youtube is doing everything it can to protect rights holders and you feel it isn't.

Is the answer then to shut down Youtube or put it behind some sort of "THIS PLACE IS BAD" warning screen?

Re: TOTAL FAIL

So how much 'creative' content could be produced for the amount being spent on sending notices?

So rights holders don't have time to check every new video, but you tube/google does?

I think a service that can afford to spend 11 million a year 'taking down' content would be better off 'creating' content... but that creative part is hard, that's why they hire artists to do the creative work for them (as a work for hire) so that they can screw over the artists and the customers. It's a Win-Win for the middlemen who don't actually do ANYTHING creative....

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a rough guesstimate is around 700 mil, but that looks like it is escewed and included all of google advertising dollars. Though even at $700 mil, that is good money for a company that gives away the vast majority of its product to the consumer for free.

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Not to mention the other uses such as the fact that a lot of educational institutions are putting their online lectures on YouTube so that they don't have to carry the burden of hosting or bandwidth or troubleshooting technical issues.

Because the media empires can't police their own content, we should stop the progress of schools that are actually acknowledging and utilizing the benefits of 21st technology to bring education more efficiently and conveniently to students.

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To say that YouTube cannot exist because some people who use it infringe, even when YouTube complies with takedown notices and uses ContentID, is to say that NO site on the Internet can accept user-based content. Even text-based comments could possibly infringe on someone.

Wouldn't it be more efficient for an artist -who wishes to enjoy all the extraordinary benefits the first decade of the 21st century is bringing to them- if there were some kind of ranking system for the really bad guys? A ranking system for copyright infringers based on DMCA notices sent?

Please do. Then watch what happens when Anonymous gets wind of it, and the RIAA, MPAA, and your blog all get put at the very top of the list. Won't it be fun when your freedom of speech gets curtailed based on nothing more than accusations?

Here's what this idiot doesn't understand: an accusation is not proof of guilt.

You can't expect someone from a content provider's perspective to advocate any other rule than this.

From the perspective of copyright owners, calculating what is "red flag" knowledge on an absolute basis is the only attractive rule because - unlike a proportional test - it shifts power from the service provider to the copyright owner. It means copyright owners can spam smaller websites into submission with notices, claiming that they've lost their safe harbor. It also means that the bigger a site gets, the easier it is for you to claim it is a pirate, without having to look at any representative sample of their content.

The industry continues to forget the lessons learned by Napster. Google has spent massive amounts of time effort and innovation in eliminating questionable content. Eliminating Youtube will only cause a thousand me too competitors that will not bring the same concern and responsiveness. Just like Napster's elimination did.

They could reduce the number of notices

They would have far less DMCA notices if copyright holders would relax a little and not get in an uproar over 30 second clips of Spongebob or whatever (which are probably fair use anyway). Just sit back and enjoy the free publicity.

Save the DMCA for things like full episodes and things that truly infringe your copyright.

You've conclusively proved there are more pirates than producers!

But it's irrelevant. Your purpose here is to minimize the sheer fact by a trick of numbers.

We all know that file-sharing is rampant. And I call the big file lockers of Rapidshare and Megaupload infringers because their whole business model is based on "illegally" uploaded content. (Quotes to show I don't take the term so literally as includes what should and would have been long ago public doman except for bribing politicians.)

Re: You've conclusively proved there are more pirates than producers!

"But it's irrelevant. Your purpose here is to minimize the sheer fact by a trick of numbers."

But that comment also goes the other way. Charlie is using numbers that the human mind does not natively comprehend to make a mountain out of a mole hill.

"We all know that file-sharing is rampant."

I guess that depends on how you define rampant. And even if we listen to the unassociated number of one million, that depends on 100% of file sharing being bad.

Let me explain it this way. Allowing for the assumption that all one million take-downs were all legit and for one million individual videos, what about the other 150-226 million videos? Why should they be punished?

Also - did you catch the insinuation that the judge in the Lenz v. Universal case is apparently corrupt because he once lectured at Stanford University, which has apparently received donations from teh Googles, which owns YouTube, which Lenz was using when she got screwed by Universal. So the judge evidently decided the case not on the basis that Universal is a bunch of overreaching jerks, but in order to give some abstract advantage to a company not even in the case, but was owned by a company that once gave contributions to a place where he once gave some lectures.

Tim, I have to say, after a lot of complaining on my part about your article quality and style of writing and after spending a lot of time actively avoiding your articles, you've come a LONG way in a very short time. I really enjoy reading your submissions now.

Automation Accommodation

I must say, Google/YouTube has been far and away more accommodating than I would have in their shoes.

I'd have said "here's an RSS feed with every newly uploaded video. You do know what an RSS feed is right? Anyhow, with this setting up your own system to check every video uploaded should be a snap. Then just let us know which ones are infringing. Have a nice day." and left those clueless bastards scratching their asses and wondering just how they were going to figure out how to set up such a thing, let along pay for it.

Re: Typical Twisted logic

"How many people speeding is acceptable ?"

According to traffic engineers, about 17% to 23%. In reality, the number of people speeding is usally closer to 30%.

When attempting to make a point, try to not openly display your ignorance of a subject even when it is a subject which one could reasonably assume most other people would have no factual data or experience.

Re: Typical Twisted logic

"How many arrest warrents for murder are too many ?"

your right D. We should start redflagging any city that has more than one murder reported a year. Maybe fence it off and tax the populace. Because how many murders can we let one city get away with before we stop the willful murder inducement and the murder profiteering. The rogue cities have to be stopped, for the porn.

Maybe I should be glad you didn't compare the subject matter to cars, but wtf was your point? 1 DCMA is too many? That copyright infringement is = to murder? Youtube should be shut down due to infringement by users, should we just turn the internet into broadcast TV then so copyright holders can be the only ones who post anything so infringement can truly be prevented?

Re: Again, bend fact to suit bias...

God! You're so lame and boring. Tell me, do your neighbors hold you in contempt, and shun you? I would be shocked if they didn't, unless you live under a bridge, in which case you'd probably have no neighbors. Now that I think of it, that's probably the whole truth about you. Does the noisy traffic overhead cause you to hear voices inside your head? I'll bet the refrigerator carton you live in has little resistance to WiFi radio signals, too. You know, the electromagnetic impulses that penetrate your brain and cause you to do strange things?

By the way, your spelling, punctuation, and grammar totally suck. But then, when you couple those facts with the fact that you make absolutely no sense at all, it really doesn't matter so much. Have a nice day. I hope the carnival comes to your town soon, so you can find some employment. Pinheads aren't so commonplace anymore, so that cuts down on your competition. Good luck in the job search.

Re: But what if the copyright owner had to send a million notices

It seem like an undue hassle for a single copyright owner to have to serve 1000s or even millions of notices to the same service provider.

Any copyright owner whose stuff is that popular should be making money hand over fist. If the really feel the need to get the stuff taken down then they must have the resources to do it but I seriously question the wisdom of such an approach. Many successful content producedrs don't bother - or simply use content ID to obtain some free income.

1 million notices is a lot.... wonder who's sending them all

Lets turn things around....

Who is spending all their time (and money, lawyers aren't cheap) sending DMCA takedown notices rather than doing something actually 'creative' with their time and money?

Oh, the middlemen... I see... Complain about YouTube not being creative and profiting off of 'their' creative works, when their entire existence relies on SOMEONE ELSE being creative and them making money off of it.

FTFY:
Wouldn't it be more efficient for an individual -who wishes to enjoy all the extraordinary benefits the first decade of the 21st century is bringing to them- if there were some kind of ranking system for the really bad guys? A ranking system for DMCA notice senders, showing who is sending the most notices, how many of those notices are 'invalid' or on content that they have no rights to, and how much money is being expended by those individuals in these efforts?

?$ for network to play Star Trek off prime-time?

I'm having a hard time trying to figure out say at 7-8pm near prime time how much money they are paying for the programming itself and not the network. I read that it costs about $350,000 for a 30 second commercial on national t.v. So ten minutes of advertisements would be roughly $14 million in revenue right? But I have a really freaking difficult time imagining that the people actually involved in the original 60's star trek episode are getting any reasonable fraction of that for every hour? I doubt content creators or anyone even involved in making the original episode at all are seeing more than $100 grand. But that's the number I'm having a hard time actually finding and would appreciate someone making that clear for me.

So what are advertisers actually paying for? Viewing audience. Lets be generous and say that every time SciFy airs a re-run of Star Trek somebody somewhere gets a check for One million for that expressed purpose. And assume an average viewing population of 500,000 people - then the cost should be $2 per person and not the money the network is losing $14 million.

This is what gets me in all of this 'how to fund media' stuff. We're also being forced to fund the mediums! All of the bogus numbers seem to be like the fact the network station is losing 14 million not that the show cost for 500,000 people to watch is losing 1 million.

Forgive my numbers being way off- but some of them I couldn't find but I am guessing they are reasonable approximations. We need to find a way to fund the media and not the medium. But what way? I think for starters finding out exactly what a show costs to air divided by the number of viewers would be a good starting point for the real world cost of piracy. In this example 500,000 people cost that Star Trek episode in and only in itself potentially $2 a piece. And cost the network $13 million.

In my idealistic Utopia (or at least the one currently in fashion with me) we don't individually pay per view, we pay per view in groups. So 100 views of Charlies' Angels reruns would be on the same reasonable scale as 100,000 views of the same show. Networks would choose to pay for 100,000 views packages with some 'reasonable' discount for bulk purchases and individuals may not only choose to buy a pack of 100 views but also they may choose to 'SHARE' them. Why is this idea of sharing automatically bad? If there is a fixed number of views to a DVD of 1,000 why can't I elect to put some on my facebook profile for my friends to share? Or better on Google+ and make them circle dependent so I can myself measure if someone is abusing it or not? This makes sense? What geographical limitation should there even be? If I mail a DVD I own to a friend why shouldn't they also be allowed to log into my computer to watch it? If we start putting number of views in rather than questionable ownership, AND make it a large number to begin with- that seems like a good compromise.

But wait - there is more. Why not further give people the ability to add in their own advertisers? Why should it make a difference if NBC is paid to air a vacuum commercial, Hulu, or just myself? I pay $10 for 1,000 views. I keep 100 for my own personal use, and put the other 900 encrypted link codes up my Google circle for people I choose to share my movie collection with. If the media companies really want to be bitches say it's only 100 plays for $10 and then I keep 10 and put 90 up online. The whole problem here is with putting it up online and what difference should that make? Television is sharing, I see a car commercial and I'm thrust into a social group that is defined by some percentage of people likely to buy one where the person who actually buys the car is in fact sharing with those of us who do not. Isn't that actually the case? A radio commercial comes on and all those persons who run out and buy the new shampoo are sharing the song with me.

Turn everyone into a media content provider. Makes sense to reclaim costs early on so most people will be third-run media providers with big players sharing the content for the first few weeks and eventually trickle down into social-networks. But why not turn file sharers into content providers? What algorithms for targeting advertisements would work better then a human operator? In fact people would do this for fake money.

You can 'buy' programming credits for either real cash or virtual currency you earn by embedding advertising into what content you choose to share. There can be a bonus for someone who buys a product as the result. Think homemade Etsy advertisements that you know at least one of your friends is likely to want? Or any small scale business that can suddenly be given advertising space, an audience, by the grace of their file sharer?

Medium has always been about sharing. We don't live in a day where a single King is ordering a play be created on his behalf and paying the total cost himself. I would like to believe that embracing people as mediums would eventually translate into realistic costs for actually creating high quality new content as someone can figure out ways of connecting directly with a target audience and have that bill be paid without needing to rely on mass audiences, majorities, and network broadcasts.